Spring is in the air!

It has been raining and/or windy so much lately. Now that the sun is out and warm we took a trip on Thursday to see Shamu. It was a beautiful day!

Potty training AJ

AJ has had a cold off and on for the past couple months. It has been hard staying at home because we are usually out and about exploring. However, this time has been perfect for potty training. 

 

fire truck, hose, potty training...get it?

We have played around with AJ sitting on the potty since he was 18 months. I always sing potty songs I would never demonstrate for an adult. It started slow with a lucky guess here and there on my behalf. I would sit him on the big boy potty and he would do something...or not.

The week of February 15 we tried going bare at home to potty train cold turkey. Primal yes, effective yes. Ha ha! Well, it actually went much better than I expected! He only had a handful of accidents including one situation where he approached me with a big pile of  "mud" in his hand. (I didn't take a picture of it.) Each time he had an accident I was very casual and just said, "oops you had an accident. That's ok. Let's clean it up." (Thank goodness we have tile flooring.) I would throw a towel on top of the pee and ask him to clean it up. I would help him clean it up and then sit him on the potty for a minute. 

Going bare bottom was a little too messy for me, but since he got the "hang" of sitting on the potty for an extended period of time, we put some regular underwear on him last week. (Hand-me-downs from Zen. Gracias Tia!!) We had two small accidents and the rest of the time he was able to sit on the potty for a while until he took care of his business. We did our special song & dance each time he had success and gave him a sticker for his sticker chart. Around the middle of the week he started telling me each time he had to go as opposed to me asking him every 5 minutes.

After that I thought we had better get some training pants. So off to the store to get some big boy underwear. I personally don't get the point of pull-ups. We went with the real deal. He has worn those for the last 3 days. We went for a walk around the block while he was wearing the training pants yesterday and they were dry when we returned. We haven't had an accident in them yet! He has only been wearing a diaper at nap and bedtime.

Today was preschool. I debated whether I should attempt to train at school or just put a diaper on him. I asked him what he wanted and he said he wanted to "wear big boy underwear at school". I was surprised! So I put a diaper on him anyway. I didn't want to risk it. He is only 1 year and 362 days old after all. Around 10am he started grabbing himself (new thing) and told one of the mommys "potty, potty, potty!" She asked me if he was potty training and I walked him to the potty. The preschool potty is so cute (if a toilet can be any kind of cute). It is preschool size. AJ was able to stand up in front of it and go. I was so happy that he was able to give me enough warning to get him there and then stand up too! What a day. He went one more time at school and didn't pee in his diaper at all. The rest of the day at home went great also. No accidents! I am so blessed to have children who potty train well. He knows how to use his hose!

I